Piracy As a Catalyst for Evolution in Anime Fandom by Allison Hawkins
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1 Piracy as a Catalyst for Evolution in Anime Fandom By Allison Hawkins Introduction: Conventions as Technological Fan Forums It is the middle of July, and I am in Los Angeles for the first time. Yet, this part of Los Angeles is unlike anything I could have expected. Surrounded by robots, magical girls, and even a few Pokémon, I wander the Los Angeles Convention Center, passing viewing rooms, panels, and the Dealers Room along with thousands of other anime fans. It is Anime Expo 2012, currently the largest anime convention in the United States. Everywhere fans discuss their favorite shows of the current season as well as those they have seen years ago. They buy DVDs and manga (Japanese comic books), display their own fan artwork, and comment on one another's Anime Music Videos (AMVs) or cosplay (the act of dressing up as an anime character). I am in the middle of a vibrant, busy, very seldom quiet space, full of passionate fans eager to discuss their favorite parts of anime culture with like-minded individuals. In ancient Roman times, the forum served multiple functions. It was a marketplace, a space for public debates, discussions, and a common meeting-place for both casual and official business. For current anime culture, the convention is the equivalent of the Roman forum. A convention serves as a marketplace, meeting place, and space for discussion and debate. It is also a space that is intimately linked with technology. While listening to conversations between fans, it was not unusual for me to hear comments such as "I've downloaded it, but haven't watched it yet" or frequent mentions of The Pirate Bay (a website for illegal downloading) and BitTorrent, suggesting that fans use technology for illegal access to anime and manga. These conversations can even (paradoxically) occur in the Dealers Room—a literal marketplace where fans buy merchandise related to their favorite shows. Looking at the current size of the typical convention, 2 with over a thousand participants for the larger ones like Otakon in Baltimore or Anime Expo in Los Angeles and even mid-sized conventions such as Youmacon in Detroit, it is almost hard to believe that such big events used to be small, as well as that a space so steeped in enterprise was first formed (and still grows) through piracy. What may be even harder to recognize is how the use of technology has enabled anime convention culture to evolve. Exploitation of technology has given fans the power to become their own creators and distributors and simultaneously helping and hindering the legally established market. Through this thesis, I hope to establish how piracy has been essential to the growth, change, and development of anime convention culture. By using technology for piracy, fans have aided in the distribution of Japanese anime and have become creators in their own right. While beneficial for the initial growth of the once-niche culture, however, fan piracy now poses problems to legitimate licensing and distributing companies. In this way, piracy has become a catalyst for the evolution of both the anime fan community and for the businesses which must now attempt to find ways to capitalize on a culture built illegally. Illegality and the Rise of the Anime Convention To understand the current anime convention scene, one must first examine the way in which anime originally made its way to the United States and the way in which fans first connected with each other. By doing this, it is easier to see how a community that started as one room at a sci-fi convention eventually grew into one that fills giant convention centers and, in some cases, even multiple buildings. The role that technology played in this growth is substantial, particularly because fans often utilized legitimate technologies for illegal purposes, and it is precisely that illegality which has caused the growth of convention culture. Furthermore, 3 it is important to recognize the way in which anime was consumed and thought about in the United States. I propose that this happened primarily in three distinct phases: an initial wave of syndication, the 1990s “anime boom,” and finally the movement to online distribution of anime. The first was the wave of syndication in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though anime was in syndication in the United States before this time, with shows such as Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy, in English) (1963), Kaitei Shōnen Marin (Marine Boy) (1966), and Mach GoGoGo (Speed Racer) (1967), the "Japan-ness" of these shows was de-emphasized and the shows dubbed over into English. As Walter Amos, a longtime anime fan, recalls, a show such as Speed Racer was “just a cool cartoon” rather than an example of Japanese anime. Walter suggests that perhaps this de-emphasis was due to historical-cultural reasons, with World War II being recent enough to warrant a downplaying of the animation’s national origins. Whatever the reason, the minimizing of "Japan-ness" changed with 1979’s Space Battleship Yamato, known as Star Blazers in the United States. Walter characterizes this show in particular as the one which sparked widespread American interest in anime. Specifically, he attributes this to the explicit statement of the show’s origins. “There, at the end of it, in the credits,” he recalls, “they made sure in the credits [to state] based on Space Battleship Yamato, directed by Leiji Matsumoto.” As he put it, fans “went completely bonkers.”1 The increased awareness of the show’s “Japan-ness” led to an increased interest in anime as an international art form. Anime fandom began to take off—specifically when fans realized that there was more Yamato to be had overseas (another season and several movies, to be precise). Once this was established, the postal service became essential to the growth of the 1Amos, Walter. Interview. Allison Hawkins. 27 July 2012. 4 fandom. Though not illegal in and of itself, the postal service was the primary way in which fans connected, communicated, traded, and ultimately illegally distributed anime and manga. This was especially true in the late 1970s, when the illegal trading of anime started to expand in response to growing demand for anime. That demand led to the use of the postal service not just as a communication method, but as a distribution method. Fans tried to find cousins or friends overseas to send tapes. When they received them, recorded and unsubtitled, they would then distribute them to other fans. Through interviewing Walter, I found another way in which fan involvement in the distribution process and convention scene could be caused by the postal service. When asked how he first became a fan of anime, Walter responded: I was not fortunate enough to have the cousin in the navy. The way I discovered anime fandom was in about 1981 or 2 I got a letter in the mail from a group called Creation Conventions…they were a commercially run convention which I think started in New York that would bring in the big name Star Trek cast, mainly big-name media…the Dealers Room was all anime, and when I say anime in 1983 that meant Leiji Matsumoto. And I will never forget walking to a table in the Dealers Room and here are art books from Space Battleship Yamato. Opening this one art book and here's a scene...I said to the dealer, “I don't ever remember seeing this scene.” And he said “Yeah, that's from the third season of the show." There were flyers saying, “If you're interested in seeing the stuff of Yamato you haven't seen and other Japanese animation, join the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, join the Star Blazers fan club.”2 2Ibid. 5 The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization was the first anime fan club, started in 1977 by Fred Patten. Members of clubs like these or the Star Blazers Fan Club would get newsletters in the mail, exchange contact information, and, most importantly, exchange tapes back and forth in order to see content not available in the United States. Patten was an anime fan starting in 1976, and eventually worked for Streamline Pictures. This was a company which translated some of the earliest US released Japanese animated movies such as My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Akira (1988) until it went out of business in 2002. Patten's initial efforts in establishing the first anime club were essential to establishing a way in which fans could connect to one another through the postal service. By sending newsletters and requests for trades amongst its members, the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization enabled anime fans from all over the nation to communicate with each other and share their acquisitions. Thus, due to the increase in demand for anime, the postal service became the primary method of distribution for Laserdisc and its competitor, the Video Home System (or VHS). Consequently, it was also the prime facilitator in establishing the first conventions devoted solely to anime. Though it did not quite catch on in the United States like the VHS, Laserdiscs (LDs) were nevertheless an important part of the growing trade between anime fans during the first phase of anime in the US market. According to one anime laserdisc enthusiast writing under the pen name of “Publius,” "not only was LaserDisc the prestige video medium in both Japan and North America, it acquired a special significance in the anime hobby community. LD's durability made it the obvious choice for those importing programs which simply were not available outside of Japan, and its high quality and freedom from copy protection led to its adoption as the standard source for the fan-traded tape copies and amateur subtitling projects which gained so many 6 programs most of their exposure in the days before 'anime' was a mass-marketable brand."3 Though expensive, the quality of media was better than that of analog VHS tapes, and the durability made it a better option for international shipping.